


Fire and Fury

by BDBriggs



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - FAHC, Alternate Universe - GTA, Blood, FAHC, Fake AH Crew, Fire, Gen, Graphic Violence, Gun Violence, Injury, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-12 00:37:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19218052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BDBriggs/pseuds/BDBriggs
Summary: A rival gang decides that the celebrating Fakes are easy prey, and they capture Jack and Gavin.Briefly, because the Vagabond unleashes hell on them.





	Fire and Fury

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Monsterpub's art on tumblr, linked below, though I mostly just referenced the last panel of the comic. 
> 
> My first fic of the FAHC! Here's hoping there's many more to come. The Vagabond is way too much fun to write, and I hope to get better at it.

Monsterpub's art [here](https://monsterpub.tumblr.com/post/166990862030/day-31-vengeance-i-did-so-many-not-actually)

 

 

The denizens of Los Santos knew the Vagabond as the cold-blooded killer that stalked the streets, the boogeyman in the night. Where he treaded, death followed. He wasn’t brash and bright and loud like the crew he ran with; the Vagabond was silent and deadly and _calm_ in his violence. He treated most of his victims with indifference; he was usually paid to kill his marks, rather than choosing them personally. Even with the Fakes, he had no real personal vendetta against his enemies. He dispatched members of rival gangs when it was necessary, slaughtered LSPD on the streets to cover his crew, and killed corrupt politicians when they rose too high. His victims might catch a glimpse of cold and calculating blue eyes if they were lucky (or unlucky) to see anything at all. He killed most of his victims under the blanket of night, when Los Santos wore a dark mask similar to his own. His style of violence was quick and efficient; his handiwork only noticed when he was long gone.

Tonight, though, the Vagabond was in rare form.

A rival gang had attacked and captured Jack and Gavin. The two had gone to buy drinks to celebrate a job well done on taking out _an entirely different crew_. This upstart gang decided the two unarmed Fakes were excellent prey.

Their mistake.

Tonight, the Vagabond wasn’t a cold, calculating killer. Gone was the mask, gone was the darkness, gone was the calm. Tonight he wore only red-black-and-white face-paint. The lines across his mouth stretched into something grotesque when he grinned, and he really was _grinning_ at the destruction around him. The buildings around him burned, burned just as brightly as the fury glinting in his ice-blue eyes. He tossed an empty gas can to the side and pocketed his lighter. The air here in the courtyard was kept free of smoke by the wind, which so often howled through Los Santos like a demon’s cry. The wind fanned the flames away from him, creating an impressive backdrop as he picked up his gun from the bloodstained floor and stalked towards the main building of the gang’s headquarters.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he crooned. He spotted movement in the warehouse in front of him and grinned wider. “Why do you run?” He asked in that same lilting croon, “You only delay the inevitable. Besides, it’s so much more _fun_ when you run away.”

A gang member bolted out of one of the burning buildings to his left with wide eyes. “What the fuck is _wrong_ with you, man?” He shrieked, voice shrill.

The Vagabond laughed. “You people made a _mistake_ ,” he said, shooting the man without pausing in his slow stalk towards the warehouse doors. “You made a mistake and now you reap the consequences.” He shot a few rounds into a window when he saw movement behind it, relishing in the pained cry he heard in response. “Now, the Vagabond’s come out to play.”

Without warning, he broke into a sprint and rammed into the doors with his shoulder, bursting through in a shower of splinters. His gun was up and shooting before the splinters hit the ground. Bodies followed the splinters.

There was answering gunfire this time, and the Vagabond dove behind a hastily constructed barricade. Around him were scattered bodies, accompanied by puddles of blood and, blessedly, weapons. His lips twitched upwards of their own accord at his good fortune. He pocketed some of the ammunition and waited for his attackers to either stop shooting or get curious enough to move up.

Curiosity won out, apparently, because as soon as the shooting stopped there were footsteps behind him. He removed the pin from a grenade and tossed it behind him, laughing at the screams that came just before the _bang_. He picked up the remaining two grenades and pocketed them to use later. The rest of the gang members in the room were easily taken out as they ran out the doors and windows towards the burning buildings on the other side of the courtyard.

The Vagabond advanced into the warehouse.

The occasional gang member fell to his gun. More fled further inside. Hardly any managed to fire their guns at him, and none of those that did managed to hit him, hindered by hands shaking with fear. He stalked slowly into the warehouse, fully aware that the fire would latch onto any fuel, regardless of wind direction. The warehouse and the bodies in it would burn to ashes until nothing was left untouched. He would raze the whole city to the ground if it meant getting revenge for his crewmates.

Finally, _finally_ , someone tried to stand up to him. He reached what looked like a security room and, while he had originally thought to let the fire take care of whoever was inside, the door burst open and five guards spilled out.

The Vagabond stopped and _grinned_.

“Get him!” One of the guards screamed and rushed him. His gun took care of the first one, but he emptied the full clip before the guard went down. _Bullet-proof armor,_ he realized. None wore helmets, and only one of them had a gun. Two had baseball bats imbedded with nails and the last one wore brass knuckles. The Vagabond tossed his empty gun to the side and reached for his knife instead. The polished metal glinted in the light from the fire behind him.

He waited for the guards to make the first move. The guard with the gun looked pale as a ghost, like he was afraid to shoot the Vagabond.

Good.

One of the baseball bat thugs launched forward with a throaty scream. The Vagabond sidestepped neatly and slashed at the thug as he went by. The blow wouldn’t kill him, but it would definitely hurt and slow him down. Then the Vagabond charged the man with the gun. He heard a _bang_ and felt the burn of a bullet entering his arm, but he didn’t even flinch as he leapt forward and sliced the gunman’s throat. The second baseball bat thug charged him next. The Vagabond ducked out of the way of his wild swing and kicked in his direction. He got lucky and hit the groin; the man went down with a strangled whimper. He grabbed the man’s baseball bat as it clattered to the ground and smashed his skull with it.

The two remaining guards stared at him in horror. The Vagabond snarled and launched himself at them, swinging the bat in controlled arcs. He didn’t stop until both men were nigh unrecognizable, their blood splattered across the walls, the floor, and himself. He retrieved his gun, reloaded it, and put it back in its holster. He decided to hold onto the bat for a little longer.

The Vagabond resumed his slow stalk through the warehouse. The flames had advanced; he could feel the heat of them at his back. The warehouse was bathed in a reddish glow that flickered along with the flames. Sirens wailed in the distance, but the LSPD and LSFD both knew better than to step in until the gunshots ceased. He used his pistol to take out a couple of thugs who ran away from him, just to remind the city that the fight was still going. 

At last, the Vagabond came to a more populated spot in the warehouse, behind stacks and crates of ammunition, armor, and other military-grade supplies. He grinned ferally and brandished his bat. The gang had already noticed him, but nobody made any move to shoot. The leader of the gang, Devin, according to Matt, was even there. The poor idiot kept glancing between the Vagabond and the windows at the back of the warehouse, where flashing blue-and-red lights were visible, and pulling nervously at his tie.

The Vagabond resolved to strangle him with it.

“We can negotiate!” Devin called, throwing up his hands in a clear sign of surrender. “We’ll give you anything you want!”

The Vagabond shook his head. “You people made a _mistake_ ,” he repeated, voice husky with smoke. “And now you’re going to die for it.”

Devin paled and looked around wildly. “You can have everything!” He amended, gesturing to the supplies around them. “Our vehicles, too. Please!”

A grin spread slowly across the Vagabond’s face. “You hurt my crew,” he said quietly, barely heard over the scream of the wind and the roar of the flames. “You hurt my crew and now you’re going to _die_.” Without warning, he threw the bat as hard as he could, nailing one of the men in the face. He pulled his gun back out and started shooting. Devin went down with a bullet to the thigh, carefully placed to avoid any arteries. His goons went down around him until the Vagabond had to reload.

He ducked around a crate for cover and reloaded as quickly as he could, aware he was vastly outnumbered. Even with the extra ammunition he’d picked up from the bodies at the entrance, he had nowhere near enough to finish everyone off. When he rose out of cover to fire, he prioritized the gunmen; despite the supplies around them, not every thug in the room wielded a gun. He assumed it was from a lack of training, which suited him just fine. Green recruits were stupid.

Green recruits liked to _run_.

Sure enough, the next time he looked out of cover he saw several men running towards the fire, hoping to find a way through the flames rather than face the Vagabond or the LSPD outside. Screams quickly sounded from the direction they fled, and the Vagabond laughed wildly.

When his gun finally came up empty, he made a run for his bat. He hadn’t taken out all the gunmen yet, but he’d bet his speed and skill against the aim of a few terrified thugs. He brained the first two men who approached him, raining down blood and shards of bone across the warehouse floor. Some of the thugs in the next wave that attacked him slipped in the mess. The Vagabond laughed until he wheezed from a combination of laughter, smoke, and exertion. The remaining thugs went down like trees in a landslide—quickly, violently, and messily.

When sounds of battle faded away, the Vagabond stalked towards Devin, laughter fading to a feral grin. The man tried to scramble away from him, and the Vagabond let him try to flee until his back hit a wall. The grin widened.

The Vagabond grabbed Devin’s tie and pulled just enough to put painful pressure on his throat. “You hurt my crew, Devin,” he repeated slowly, as though speaking to a child. “Now, you die.”

Devin’s eyes shone with fear. “H-how do you know my name?” He rasped.

The Vagabond laughed. “Death knows everyone.” Devin’s face turned white as a sheet. He leaned down close, getting in Devin’s face. “ _Nobody_ hurts my _family_ ,” he growled. He planted his boot on Devin’s chest, leaned forward to put his weight into his ribcage, and pulled on the tie. Devin twitched and warbled and turned red, then blue, then grey. He let go of the tie and brained him with the bat anyways, just in case.

The Vagabond tossed the bat down and looked around at the carnage. Bodies lie strewn across the floor, accompanied by puddles of blood and bullet casings and empty guns. Crates and piles of supplies were scattered around the floor, meant as offerings and used as cover. The flames crept closer, the red glow brighter, smoke beginning to choke the warehouse. The Vagabond pulled out his remaining grenades and headed towards one of the windows in the back.

The LSPD were out there. Helicopters and swat vans and black-and-white cars were out in force, spotlights sweeping along the road. It was no wonder the new recruits tried their chances with the flames. Hastily constructed barricades blocked off the streets, but they were more to give the denizens of Los Santos a sense of security than to keep the criminals confined. To prove it, he smashed out the window in front of him and the LSPD looked over in fear. He grinned again, aware that he was an easily-spotted silhouette against the roaring flames. The LSPD moved _backwards_ , not forwards, providing him the escape he needed.

The Vagabond tossed his two remaining grenades behind him, towards the crates of ammunition. He launched himself over the windowsill, into the street, behind a nearby barricade before they blew. Then, without sparing a glance towards the LSPD, he ran into the dark alleys of Los Santos.

They let him.

The Vagabond ran until he could no longer hear the roar of flames behind him, until the wail of the sirens and the roar of the choppers became noises in the background rather than the only things he could hear. He ran until his lungs burned and his legs felt like jelly, until he reached a safehouse a few miles away.

He slipped inside without being seen and headed to the kitchen, where he knew there would be radios stocked in one of the cupboards. He found one, turned it on, and radioed Geoff on a private frequency.

“Did you get them?” He demanded.

A rush of static came through, and he couldn’t tell if Geoff sighed or fumbled his radio. “We got them,” Geoff promised. “They’re fine.”

The ball of white-hot anger in the Vagabond’s chest loosened. “They’re okay?”

“They’re okay.”

The Vagabond sighed in relief. The adrenaline and anger seeped out of his bones, leaving him cold and achy. He remembered the bullet wound in his arm. His lungs burned from having run for so long and far, and from the smoke in the warehouse.

“I’m watching a commotion from the penthouse,” Geoff said casually, “some big fire that the LSFD let go for a long time. You know how these winds are, it really took off.” The Vagabond was silent, waiting. “Seems like the LSPD had the whole area blocked off, even the fire department couldn’t get in. Jeremy just turned on the news to see what’s going on down there.”

“Must’ve been a gang fight,” the Vagabond offered.

“Must’ve been.”

He quickly found the remote to the TV in the living room and turned on the news. A news chopper was showing the raging inferno engulfing the gang’s headquarters. He was about to open his mouth and comment, but the station changed to a different camera, one _not_ on a live feed. It showed a man in the window of the burning warehouse, silhouetted against the flames. The man tossed something behind him and leapt out of the window, the change in lighting revealing a dark blue and black jacket, long dark hair, face-paint, and a whole lot of blood splattered across the whole ensemble. Ryan watched himself run out of view of the camera just as the grenades exploded and—he must have gotten lucky and hit some bigger explosives, because _wow_ the explosion was bright, brighter than what two grenades could do on their own.

The radio was condescendingly silent.

“Whoops,” he offered flatly, “my hand slipped.”

“Ryan—”

“ _Nobody_ hurts my crew,” he snarled into the radio. “ _Nobody_.”

Geoff was silent for a long, long time. Ryan turned the TV off and waited him out. “Jack and Gavin are fine,” Geoff said quietly. “We got to them before the gang’s convoy reached their property in Blaine County. Gavin has a split lip. One of Jack’s fingers is broken, and she’s bruised a lot on one side from crashing her car. Neither are seriously wounded. _They’re. Fine._ ” Ryan didn’t say anything, and Geoff continued. “Come home in the morning, if you’re feeling better. Just let everything in the city die down a bit first.”

Ryan bit his lip and listened for the _whup-whup-whup_ of choppers, but either the mess was far enough away or the windows in this safehouse were too thick to hear it.

“And go get cleaned up,” Geoff added, “you looked disgusting.”

Ryan laughed, then, a croaky thing different from the cruel laugh the Vagabond had let out in the warehouse. “See you tomorrow, Geoff,” he said, chuckling when Geoff cursed at him under his breath. He brought the radio with him to the bathroom, just in case, but heard nothing further as he peeled off his bloodstained clothes and left them in a heap on the linoleum floor. He took care to extract the bullet from his arm and then turned on the hot water in the shower.

He stepped in, letting the steaming water hit him in the face for a moment before he bowed his head and let the water wash away the soot, blood, and face-paint that covered him like a second skin. The drain in the shower had been plugged by whoever used it last, and the water in the bottom of the shower turned dark as the Vagabond melted off his skin and pooled on the shower floor around his feet. Tonight, there was no further need for the Vagabond. As soon as he was clean, he would bandage his wounds, eat, and sleep. In the morning, he’d go back to the penthouse to check on his crew.

Ryan toed the plug open, and the Vagabond swirled down the drain.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! <3


End file.
